R. Kelly claims prison officials plotted to kill him. Judge denies his release.

Pacold noted that federal courts have only limited power in such cases, and one by one she examined and rejected various ways Kelly's request could be considered.
'Jurisdictional limitations must be respected even where, as here, a litigant claims that the circumstances are extraordinary,' Pacold wrote. 'Kelly has not identified (nor is the court aware of) any statute or rule that authorizes the court to exercise jurisdiction. Thus, the court cannot award relief in this case.'
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Kelly claimed in a series of filings this month that prison officials solicited white supremacist leaders to kill him, to halt the disclosure of information damaging to prison officials.
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Kelly's attorney says he was then moved to solitary confinement and purposely given an overdose of medication, which required hospitalization and surgery for blood clots.
Pacold noted that Kelly offers no evidence to back up his claims. Government lawyers suggested Kelly had spun a 'fanciful conspiracy.'
Known for such hits as 'I Believe I Can Fly,' Kelly was found guilty in Chicago in 2022 of three charges of producing child sexual abuse images and three charges of enticement of minors for sex. In New York in 2021, he was found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking. He is serving most of his 20-year Chicago sentence and 30-year New York sentence simultaneously.
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His appeals have been unsuccessful, including to the U.S. Supreme Court. Kelly has also sought President Donald Trump's help.

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Rhode Island lawmakers pass bill to ban sales of assault weapons

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Rhode Island's Democratic-controlled state House on Friday approved legislation that would ban the sale and manufacturing of many semiautomatic rifles commonly referred to as assault weapons. The proposal now heads to the desk of Democratic Gov. Dan McKee, who has said he supports assault weapons bans. If the bill is signed into law, Rhode Island will join 10 states that have some sort of prohibition on high-powered firearms that were once banned nationwide and are now largely the weapon of choice among those responsible for most of the country's devastating mass shootings. Gun control advocates have been pushing for an assault weapons ban in Rhode Island for more than a decade. However, despite being a Democratic stronghold, lawmakers throughout the country's smallest state have long quibbled over the necessity and legality of such proposals. The bill only applies to the sale and manufacturing of assault weapons and not possession. Only Washington state has a similar law. Residents looking to purchase an assault weapon from nearby New Hampshire or elsewhere will also be blocked. Federal law prohibits people from traveling to a different state to purchase a gun and returning it to a state where that particular of weapon is banned. Nine states and the District of Columbia have bans on the possession of assault weapons, covering major cities like New York and Los Angeles. Hawaii bans assault pistols. Democratic Rep. Rebecca Kislak described the bill during floor debates Friday as an incremental move that brings Rhode Island in line with neighboring states. 'I am gravely disappointed we are not doing more, and we should do more," she said. "And given the opportunity to do this or nothing, I am voting to do something.' Critics of Rhode Island's proposed law argued that assault weapons bans do little to curb mass shootings and only punish people with such rifles. 'This bill doesn't go after criminals, it just puts the burden on law-abiding citizens,' said Republican Sen. Thomas Paolino. Republican Rep. Michael Chippendale, House minority leader, predicted that if the legislation were to become law, the U.S. Supreme Court would eventually deem it unconstitutional. 'We are throwing away money on this," he said. It wasn't just Republicans who opposed the legislation. David Hogg — a gun control advocate who survived the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida — and the Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence described the proposed ban as the 'weakest assault weapons ban in the country.' 'I know that Rhode Islanders deserve a strong bill that not only bans the sale, but also the possession of assault weapons. It is this combination that equals public safety,' Hogg said in a statement. Elisabeth Ryan, policy counsel at Everytown for Gun Safety, rejected claims that the proposed law is weak. 'The weakest law is what Rhode Island has now, no ban on assault weapons,' Ryan said. 'This would create a real, enforceable ban on the sale and manufacture of assault weapons, just like the law already working in Washington state, getting them off the shelves of Rhode Island gun stores once and for all.' Nationally, assault weapons bans have been challenged in court by gun rights groups that argue the bans violate the Second Amendment. AR-15-style firearms are among the best-selling rifles in the country. The conservative-majority Supreme Court may soon take up the issue. The justices declined to hear a challenge to Maryland's assault weapons ban in early June, but three conservative justices — Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas — publicly noted their disagreement. A fourth, Brett Kavanaugh, indicated he was skeptical that the bans are constitutional and predicted the court would hear a case 'in the next term or two.'

Chicago Tribune

10 hours ago

• Chicago Tribune

Alexander Polikoff, public-interest lawyer behind landmark CHA segregation case, dies

Public-interest lawyer Alexander Polikoff spent decades fighting powerful interests, most notably in a case he filed on behalf of Black public housing residents against the city of Chicago that spanned most of his career. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 agreed with Polikoff and his clients' contention that the city had discriminated against Black public housing residents and had selected housing for them based on race. Polikoff spent the next 43 years holding the city accountable until federal oversight over Chicago public housing was lifted in 2019. 'Alex was not motivated by money, fame or life's comforts,' said Hoy McConnell, who succeeded Polikoff as the executive director of Business People and Professionals for the Public Interest, the small public-interest law firm that Polikoff joined in 1970. 'Rather, he dedicated his life to making change to improve the lives of those burdened by poverty and discrimination.' Polikoff, 98, died of natural causes May 27 at his home in Keene, New Hampshire, said his son, author Daniel Joseph Polikoff. A longtime Highland Park resident, Polikoff moved to New Hampshire in 2022 to be near his daughter. Born and raised in Chicago, Polikoff was the son of attorney Julius Polikoff. After graduating from Senn High School in 1944, he briefly attended Purdue University before joining the Navy. After his discharge, he earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in English from the University of Chicago. He then received his law degree from the Hyde Park school in 1953, and worked for the next 17 years at the firm that became Schiff Hardin. Polikoff performed extensive pro bono legal work, representing clients alongside the American Civil Liberties Union. 'I don't remember a time when my dad wasn't doing some pro bono work with the ACLU, taking on various causes,' Polikoff's son said. 'That pro bono work was very compelling to him — it was part of his character.' In 1965, he filed a lawsuit in Lake County on behalf of four pupils to force Waukegan's elementary school board to reorganize school boundaries in order to meet integration standards. The Illinois Supreme Court in 1968 ruled favorably on Polikoff's contention that race could be taken into account to redraw school district boundary lines to achieve integration. The longest battle of Polikoff's career started in 1966, when he represented a group of Black Chicago Housing Authority residents in a federal class-action lawsuit. The case is known by the name of one of those residents, tenant activist Dorothy Gautreaux. Polikoff alleged that the CHA had practiced racial segregation by building most of its public housing complexes in Black neighborhoods and had deliberately placed Black residents in those complexes. In 1969, Judge Richard Austin concluded that the CHA had discriminated against Blacks in violation of the U.S. Constitution's equal-protection clause and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which barred racial discrimination in any program receiving federal aid. Austin also ruled that three public housing units must be built in white areas for every similar unit built in a Black neighborhood. White aldermen refused to approve sites for new construction. The CHA also dragged its feet by simply stopping building instead of following Austin's directives. In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling on an appeal from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, unanimously concluded that the CHA had practiced segregation. Justices found that the CHA's problems were regional in nature, and that solutions could occur both in the city and the suburbs. Austin then expanded his order to include the entire metro area as an option for scattered-site housing. However, suburbs resisted new construction of lower-income scattered-site housing. A 1981 consent decree in the case placed CHA tenants in existing area housing and gave them federal Section 8 rent subsidies. 'The whole idea was to take the thinking beyond the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that ended school segregation and transfer it to the area of housing,' Polikoff told the Tribune in 1994. '(The) CHA's policy since the early 1950s worked to make each of its 168 high-rise buildings virtually 100% Black. It was illegal, immoral and socially disastrous to pile poor people on top of poor people.' The CHA eventually altered its operations and demolished numerous high-rises such as Cabrini-Green, the Henry Horner Homes and the Robert Taylor Homes in favor of scattered-site housing. The federal government ended its oversight of the CHA in 2019. At 92 years old, Polikoff was still involved in the case. 'It is well-known that the work Alex led changed public housing practices both in Chicago and nationally, and positively impacted tens of thousands of public housing residents,' said attorney Julie Brown, who worked for decades with Polikoff on the Gautreaux case. 'He was brilliant, of course, but always questioning. He had an uncanny ability to put aside extraneous issues and get to the heart of any matter he addressed. He had an innate sense that justice should prevail and insisted on doing everything he could to try to make it so.' Alex Kotlowitz, whose award-winning 1992 book, 'There Are No Children Here,' covered hardscrabble life in the Henry Horner Homes, praised Polikoff for challenging the CHA, 'which had become a kind of warehousing for the city's poor. He challenged the nation's conscience.' 'Alex was one of the first to recognize the profound effects of concentrated poverty,' Kotlowitz said. 'The Gautreaux litigation changed more than just housing policy. It forced us to reconsider how we treat the marginalized. It prodded us to consider our collective responsibilities to those who are struggling economically.' 'Gautreaux laid the foundation for the present-day national conversation about mixed-income housing, a reconsideration of how we think about community,' Kotlowitz said. Polikoff left private law practice in 1970 to join the staff of the public-interest law firm Businessmen for the Public Interest, later named Business People and Professionals for the Public Interest and now known as Impact for Equity. He became the executive director of the group, which provided a full-time platform for continued social justice advocacy, and held that post until 1999. He continued to work as the group's housing director until fully retiring in 2022. Under Polikoff, the group succesffully fought City Hall's proposal in the early 1970s to build a new airport on landfill in Lake Michigan. It also successfully fought plans for a nuclear power plant near Chesterton, Indiana, on the border of the 12,500-acre Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, winning a key court fight in 1974 when a three-judge panel of federal judges halted construction. The utility Northern Indiana Public Service Co. formally abandoned plans for a nuclear plant on the site in 1981. And pressure from Polikoff and his colleagues at BPI and from the Citizens Utility Board spurred utility Commonwealth Edison Co. to announce the settlement of 10 years of rate-case litigation in October 1993 with a record $1.34 billion refund to rate-payers. Polikoff's 'vision and passion inspired many of us,' recalled Environmental Law & Policy Center CEO Howard Learner, BPI's former general counsel and the lead consumer lawyer in ComEd settlement negotiations. 'Alex was always proud that part of his legacy in leading BPI was the multiplier impact from the number of talented public interest attorneys and vital new organizations that were developed at and grew from BPI to make a difference for the public good.' Bob Vollen, who worked alongside Polikoff at BPI from 1972 until 1982, said Polikoff had a 'way of posing a question that it allowed no possible answer other than the one he was seeking.' Polikoff authored five books, including 'Waiting for Gautreaux: A Story of Segregation, Housing and the Black Ghetto,' which was published in 2006. His most recent book, 'Cry My Beloved America,' an examination of anger and frustration in America, was published in 2024. Polikoff's wife of 71 years, author Barbara Garland Polikoff, died in 2022. A daughter, Joan, died in 2016. In addition to his son, Polikoff is survived by another daughter, Eve Kodiak; and five grandchildren. Services will be private.

UPI

11 hours ago

• UPI

Supreme Court allows terrorism victims to sue Palestinian groups

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld a federal law that allows victims of terrorism to sue Palestinian entities in U.S. courts. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo June 20 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld a federal law that allows victims of terrorism to sue two Palestinian entities in U.S. courts. The decision reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals in the New York-based 2nd Circuit that found the law denied the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority fair legal process. All nine justices ruled that the bipartisan 2019 law, called the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, does not violate due process rights of the PLO and PA. The lawsuit and appeal involve cases from the early 2000s and not the Israel-Hamas war and airstrikes between Israel and Iran. It was based on the Antiterrorism Act of 1990, which creates a federal civil damages action for U.S. nationals injured or killed "by reason of an act of international terrorism." Founded in 1964, the PLO is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories. The PA, founded in 1994, is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 46-page opinion that included a concurrence by Justice Clarence Thomas and backed by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wanted to define the boundaries of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Lawsuits by U.S. victims of terrorist attacks in Israel can move forward in American courts. "It is permissible for the Federal Government to craft a narrow jurisdictional provision that ensures, as part of a broader foreign policy agenda, that Americans injured or killed by acts of terror have an adequate forum in which to vindicate their right to ATA compensation," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. In April, the high court consolidated two cases for arguments: a Justice Department appeal and an appeal by the family of Israeli-American Ari Fuld, who was fatally stabbed at a shopping mall in the West Bank in 2018. The Biden administration initially intervened in Fuld's case and another one brought by 11 American families who sued the Palestinian leadership groups and were awarded $650 million in a 2025 trial for several attacks in Israel.